What You Get for ... $5 Million

A three-bedroom house overlooking Victoria Beach in Laguna Beach, Calif., is on the market for $5,000,000. The house has a garage at street level and two stories above it.Credit
Emily Berl for The New York Times

LAGUNA BEACH, CALIF.

WHAT: A three-bedroom house with two full and two half-bathrooms

HOW MUCH: $5,000,000

SIZE: 3,200 square feet

PRICE PER SQUARE FOOT: $1,562.50

SETTING: This house is in Laguna Beach, a hilly coastal community about an hour south of Los Angeles and an hour north of San Diego. During the 1960s and ’70s the area was known for surfers, artists and the counterculture: L.S.D. pioneer Timothy Leary was arrested here in 1968, and Crystal Cove State Park was once dotted with squatters’ cottages. More recently, day spas and high-end real estate have moved in, although the Thalia Surf Shop still holds occasional punk-rock shows and community galleries coordinate a monthly art walk.

This house is in a residential neighborhood on a cul-de-sac overlooking Victoria Beach, which can be reached by pedestrian ramp. Just south is Montage Laguna Beach, an award-winning luxury resort with a hotel and restaurants. A trolley a few blocks from the house makes regular trips to Laguna’s small downtown shopping area.

INDOORS: The house, a duplex on top of a garage, was gut-renovated within the past few years. One bedroom is on the ground level, behind the garage. The floor above the garage story is guest quarters, which could function as a separate apartment and is accessible by an elevator in the garage. It has a kitchen, a living room, a bedroom and a bathroom. Walls of windows and sliding glass doors in the living room open to a patio and wraparound porch overlooking the ocean.

The second floor above the garage, reached by exterior stairs, is used as the owners’ living quarters. Influenced by Northeastern beach cottages, modern and Japanese architecture, the great room features a pitched, wood-beam ceiling, a porcelain-tile floor and walls of glass opening to a deck facing the ocean. Many of the windows are portholes, part of an aquatic theme continued on fish-patterned wallpaper in one of the bathrooms, and the sea horse design of the Murano glass knob of the front door. The master bedroom suite is separated from the great room by a sliding door paneled with semitransparent polyurethane, a design inspired by the shoji room dividers found in traditional Japanese architecture. At one corner of the bedroom is a built-in desk against a large mitered window that provides an unbroken view of the ocean.

SETTING: This house, a glass-walled contemporary, is perched on a bluff overlooking Lake Travis in a 50-acre subdivision in northwest Austin. The surrounding area is residential. There are several parks on and around the lake, including one in neighboring Lakeway, a five-minute drive away; the 323-acre Arkansas Bend Park; and Hippie Hollow, the state’s clothing-optional public park. A 152-acre shopping center, Hill Country Galleria, is within a 10-minute drive; the high-rises of downtown are a half-hour away.

INDOORS: The house was built in 2009 and designed by David Webber, the principal of an Austin architecture firm specializing in minimalist, contemporary style. The design is ecological: the house’s power, for example, is generated by rooftop solar panels; there’s also a rainwater collection system and solar heating for the pool. The main house has an open and airy layout, with 11-foot ceilings and walls of windows in the great room facing the lake. Most of the floors are bamboo; some are poured concrete. The kitchen is by Bulthaup, a German company known for its functional design. Two of the main house’s bedrooms are currently used as offices. The master suite opens to a private outdoor hot tub. Tucked off the center hall is a library with built-in wood shelves. The house is primarily single-level, but there’s a sunken exercise room built into the property’s slope. Across a covered courtyard is a three-bedroom guesthouse, designed along the same lines as the main house.

OUTDOOR SPACE: Between the main house and guesthouse is a covered, walled-in courtyard with a pool and a hot tub. A catwalk-like deck wraps around the main house, with a cantilevered sitting area. A private path leads to the lake and a boathouse. The 11-acre lot includes four acres of land; the remainder is underwater.

SETTING: The South End is a primarily residential neighborhood just south of the riverfront downtown as well as historic Beacon Hill and Back Bay. Its housing is typified by red-brick, slate-roofed town houses — the country’s largest collection of urban Victorian architecture, according to the National Register of Historic Places. This house is on Union Park, which is bracketed by two mixed-use blocks: Tremont Street, the area’s restaurant row, and Shawmut Avenue, which is lined with locally owned cafes and shops.

The South End has become especially popular with young families, in part because of the abundance of city parks, including the adjoining Franklin and Blackstone Squares, about five blocks from this house, according to the listing agent. At the southern edge of the neighborhood is a district of converted lofts, restaurants, galleries, graphic design businesses and architecture firms. A half-mile toward the Charles River is the High Spine, a corridor to which high-rises are confined by design, making businesses easily accessible without compromising the character of surrounding historic neighborhoods.

INDOORS: This five-story brick house was built in 1859 and substantially renovated within the past six years. Most of the marble fireplace mantels are original, as are some of the window casings and molding. Other details, like pilasters and hardwood floors, were added by the current owners and designed to be in keeping with the house’s Victorian style. Stairs from the street lead to the formal entrance, on what the owners call the parlor level. The entrance opens to a formal living room and a family room of more than 300 square feet, with coffered ceilings, built-in bookcases, a wet bar and an aquarium built over the mantel. The rooms are connected by a gallerylike hallway accented with crown molding, pilasters, a barreled ceiling and a small dome.

The formal dining room and eat-in kitchen are below, on the street level, and the informal entrance here is used by the family. Between the dining room and kitchen is a butler’s pantry and a wine rack. An etched-glass door in the kitchen opens to a fenced-in flagstone patio.

The master suite takes up the third floor. It has a sitting room with built-in bookshelves and a glass-block wall, a walk-in cedar closet, a bathroom with a jetted tub and a separate shower, and a study with a built-in desk and bookshelves. Both bedrooms on the fourth floor have fireplaces. The fifth floor has another bedroom, a fitness room with a barreled ceiling with skylight, and a sauna. The last bedroom, part of an au-pair suite, is in the basement. It has a built-in desk. Other rooms in the basement include a storage area and a wine cellar.

OUTDOOR SPACE: A flagstone patio with a fountain and planting beds on two sides.